


constellations

by oeuvre



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oeuvre/pseuds/oeuvre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of the last two humans left on this planet, who pass their final days living at the center of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	constellations

 

.

 

On good days, Mikasa takes the net or one of their manmade rods and catches that week’s worth of fish. They had never eaten very much during their days in the scouting legion, but they eat even less now. Though whatever body of water they appeared to be in had plenty of fish, Mikasa had never been the type to overeat, and Eren hardly nibbles. She still catches as much as she can, keeping it on their little ship as Eren continues to stare forward, always expressionless and usually crying.

"We’re on the ocean," Mikasa tells him sometimes, hoping that the word ‘ocean’ will trigger something in Eren and remind him that they’re living the dream that he had stoked with Armin when they were younger. But Eren doesn’t respond. He doesn’t speak anymore.

 

.

 

There are some days that are clearer than others, when the night skies open up so wide that Mikasa can tip her head back and see pinpricks of light smaller than flecks of dust scattered haphazardly across the sky.

"Look, Eren," she says. Her hands are around Eren’s bicep, her face tilted towards the light. His hands are clasped, his eyes forward. He sees nothing but the ripples of moonlight reflecting on the surface of the water. She sees the world.

Mikasa threads the distance between a few stars with gold lines, until the universe is webbed much like the fishing nets that they use to get by. It cups the small puddle that composes of the world, and all of the waves and the large moon with it. It has caught two little minnows.

 

.

 

Eren asks her one thing, one day, during a sunset.

"Where are we going?"

This question stumps Mikasa, but Eren doesn’t notice her stumble. What does he want to hear? She doesn’t know. “We’re going to find the edge of the world, where this water and everything stops existing," she eventually answers. That wouldn’t have been possible even if it had been true. Their mast had broken down weeks ago. They are merely drifting now. She doesn’t even know if they had moved from the same spot, but that isn’t nearly as important as it would have been in the past.

"Why?" His voice is so flat that it doesn’t even sound like an inquiry.

"So we can sail off of it."

 

.

 

"How incredible. Realizing that these are the same stars that everyone else saw," Mikasa says one night. She’s lying down, her hands clasped around one of Eren’s. The night breeze wafts ocean air over them, scattering and drying salt in their hair. “Back in the Walls. These are the same ones that watched over us then, Eren, isn’t it reassuring that they’re still with us?"

She isn’t lying. Mikasa is sure that she has seen them before, as sure as she is that everyone else has seen them too. Sasha had giggled something nonsensical about them, her bloody fingers pointing at the sole speck that she could make out as her other one tugged insistently at Christa’s sleeve, before she finally bled to death. Christa later finds herself torn apart under them, and Connie, who had witnessed her demise, isn’t given the chance to see them at all as only his legs remained. Even Jean, who had slid down the gullet of a 15-meter class, had reached his arm out in his last moments, trying to grab ahold of one.

Armin had been practically showered in them when Mikasa and Eren had found him, face down in a dark pool of blood that could only weakly reflect the lights from above. He was also sent off by them that clear night, as he was cremated in the open air. They were the same ones that had reflected from Rivaille’s eyes as well, when they found him strung up like fairy lights in the forest, his face turned upwards. His sight had been speckled with them. It looked like he had seen all the universe in that one glance, and, judging by his lowered lids, confirmed it all to be as utterly and irrevocably dull as he had predicted. Hanji had been similar, except the force of the explosion had twisted her face into a macabre grin that made her look rather pleased with what Rivaille had found unsatisfactory.

"Always watching out for us," Mikasa repeats. She blinks, and those same stars reflect off her eyes now. She thinks they look magnificent.

Eren doesn’t listen. He is leaning over the edge of the boat, his hand trailing in the frigid water. He is trying to catch the reflection of the moon.

 

.

 

Mikasa knows that Eren thinks they are dying a coward’s death. It’s true.

"I can’t do anything about that, you know," she tells his blank face. He’s facing her direction, but he’s not exactly looking at her. His eyes are glazed, like there’s something more interesting happening behind her head. He never looks at her anymore. “But we’re still alive, alright? There was no way we could have saved everyone.”

It’s no excuse. They both know it. They sit in their small boat, with the name  _Astraea_ printed on the side, drifting in the middle of water because they were the only ones that managed to escape. They sit there in the water, eating fish occasionally, tanning in the sun, searching for a horizon, and regretting every decision they’ve ever made in the past.

 

.

 

They are the last of humanity. Neither ever says these words out loud. They both know it’s true.

Mikasa doesn’t know how long they’re on the boat. She supposes if that they’re correct in assuming that they’re the last ones left (and they are), they wouldn’t really need to know, as they would be the only two that even believe in the concept of time. The fish that they eat and the birds that fly above don’t care about how long they’ve encroached on their lands.

Just in case though, she prepares an answer. It’s half assed. Not exactly correct. It’s, “Well, we’re still settling in."

 

.

 

Eren cries a lot. Mikasa thinks that he must still be thinking about their friends. He had cried a lot, after all, after seeing Sasha’s and Christa’s and Connie’s and Jean’s bodies, with his fists balled in front of his eyes and shoulders heaving. Those were fairly dignified tears, though. They had died fighting. Served their purpose, and were just as quickly replaced. Maybe that’s why Eren cried for them—more because he had realized, after their deaths, just how little they were worth to everyone else than they were to him. He cried because he couldn’t work the magic required to make everyone morn them on the same level as he was, that he believed they deserved, and that was what made him sad.

It took him a while to react, with Rivaille and Hanji. Mikasa thinks it must have been the shock of the reminder that even Rivaille was only human, and when broken would look the same as anyone else. The two of them had died gruesome deaths—bloodied and mangled, they died looking like they had been crushed by the weight of the responsibility they bore. Eren had fallen to his knees. He had clenched his own hair until Mikasa was sure he was in terrible pain, and he had lowered his forehead to the ground and let loose with one of the most human and tragic sounds she’s ever heard. He had stayed their diligently by their side, and had stood there pathetically, face blotted from crying, the last one holding his silent salute as their bodies were taken away.

 _Weak Eren_ , Mikasa had thought at first.  _Poor, weak Eren. Don’t cry for them, only more will come_.

It was the worst for Armin, though. The image of Eren screaming as he cried, with fat tears spilling down his cheeks like forest rain and diluting the blood on Armin’s face, is burned into Mikasa’s mind. She had cried, too, so hard and with such a deep sadness that she knew a part of her had died with him, and would continue to fade with every friend that they had to see off. Rivaille had still been alive then, and it took his fist in Eren’s hair and Hanji’s arms around Mikasa’s chest for the two of them to pull them away from their best friend so they could put the body with all the others. Armin was picked up and pulled away like every other dead soldier. He wasn’t like just every other soldier, though, and that was what made Mikasa sad.  _Weak Mikasa, poor, poor weak Mikasa. Don’t cry for him, don’t cry for any of them. When you start, you can never stop_.

She will never forget the feeling of sitting there with Eren that day, hugging the body of their best friend between them, heartbroken and crying for him like it would bring him back. In that sense, Mikasa has no right to tell Eren to stop. She can only tease him softly about making sure that he didn’t cry too much, or their boat would sink under.

 

.

 

Mikasa knew the truth. That she was the last human remaining. Eren had died back there with all of their friends and only left his empty shell for Mikasa to drag around and feed. It didn’t matter that his heart was still beating. She could put her ear to his chest like all those years before, hear the dull sound, and still know that she was the last one. His chest was cold now. Not hot, like it had been after he had first phased. It’s only fitting.

Mikasa stares up. How long had it been night? If they weren’t careful, the stars might burn out. She tells this to Eren, but like always, he’s more interested in the water than the sky.

She grabs his hands and leans until her head is resting on his shoulder. He stares forward.

"Please don’t leave me here alone, Eren."

 

.

 

She remembers everything about the titans.

They were tall, clumsy—most of them, anyway—and lumbered around like children that could hardly walk. She hadn’t enjoyed killing them, no one does. Mikasa had only wished for her hands to be larger, for them to be stronger, for her to be able to single-handedly tear out the nape of every titan that dared walk the planet.

She remembers the faces of many dead, unnamed civilians. She’s ashamed to say that she remembers the children better than the adults, but they all looked the same in death. Blood falling to the ground and splashing into the spokes of red stars, waxy skin and open mouths. The flies were unbearable. It was war, bloody and horrifying and tragic, but it had been her life.

It’s a funny wish, but she finds herself craving her 3D gear one last time. She wants to stand in the trees of the forest. She wants to shoot her hooks forward, and she wants to fly through the sky just once more. She wants to feel the wind so cold and harsh that she can hardly open her eyes with how fast she’s flying, and she wants to feel rain pelt against her skin like rocks. She wants to hear the laughter of people behind her, wants to catch a glimpse of them when she makes a sharp turn of flips in midair. She wants to see Jean and Connie yelling at each other as they soar to her right, Sasha trailing not far behind with her hands in the air whooping and laughing as Marco called out and followed them. She wants to see Christa and Ymir, Reiner and Bertolt and Annie, even, before they were anything more than human, back when they were all only known as the bravest.

 

.

 

She wants to see Armin’s eyes wide with fright and excitement. She wants to see the light in Eren’s eyes again. She wants to see how close they can come to the stars.

.

 

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from tumblr


End file.
